What should the government do?

Refuse to be besieged by corruption charges, continue to act to bolster the economy and take new initiatives to begin a fundamental paradigm change in how politics is funded. This is the essence of what the government should do – in the interest of the nation and of the ruling party.

To go back to full-time imitation of a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights would be the worst option. People dislike corruption, are fascinated by and supportive of anti-corruption crusaders but still do not expect the government to be tied down to a single-point agenda of corruption.

While political management of corruption charges against the Congress president’sson-in-law, a central minister and a state chief minister is an important task, it cannot and should not consume all the energies of the government. The party should manage these affairs, defending where defence is called for or distancing itself from the indefensible.

The government has to focus on two things on the economic front: taming inflation and stepping up investment. Food inflation is a major driver of inflation. The only way to combat it is to stop mismanaging the distribution of foods in whose supplies there is a glut, and increase supplies of those articles for which demand growth outstrips supply growth. The government is sitting on 74 million tonnes of grain in its stocks.

Had the Essential Commodities Act provided for it, food minister K V Thomas would be found guilty of humongous hoarding – he is sitting on one-third the country’s annual grain output – manipulating grain prices, causing hunger and starvation; and he would be sentenced to hard labour. Luckily for him, the law does not apply to the government. But that is no excuse to tolerate mismanagement of grain stocks that pushes up wheat prices.

Proteins – lentils, egg, milk, fish, chicken and other meat – and fruit and vegetables are in short supply. The main bottleneck is not in production, but in the logistics of getting these perishable products to consumers. What Amul did to milk needs to be extended to other states and to other food articles: organise farmers into production units with bargaining power, invest in and modernise the first-level processing of their produce, transport it to towns and distribute it directly to consumers or to retailers.

This is a job that calls for leadership, organising skills and investment. Don’t try to look for leadership among the city-bred scions of political dynasts. Mobilise leaders from the grassroots and empower them. Know-how is available on tap, and mostly for free. Investment is not hard to finance, if leadership can be summoned to execute it, in roads, climate-controlled warehouses, processing plants and refrigerated vans.

Investment in such rural infrastructure and logistics is needed and welcome, but will not suffice to make good the steep fall in the economy’s aggregate investment over the last few years. For that, large infrastructure projects must take off.

Ashok Gehlot can help. The chief minister of Rajasthan should bring along a busload of his MLAs and start a mass hunger strike in front of Shastri Bhavan, home to the petroleum ministry that has been obstinately refusing to clear a 25,000-crore investment proposal for no valid reason visible to the naked eye. The project is to increase oil output from Cairn’s Rajasthan field from 1,70,000 barrels a day to 3,00,000 barrels a day.

A large part of the investment would directly lead to civil construction that would generate thousands of jobs, besides huge demand for steel and cement. Shastri Bhavan is killing Gehlot’s re-election chances by brooding over this project like a hen that has lost interest in hatching her eggs.

In return for clearing this project, the Centre should ask Gehlot to remove all land-related hurdles for the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor to begin making the transition from project dream to dream project.

Finally, the political leadership must shed the notion that Arvind Kejriwal is a bad dream that will go away. It is time for a paradigm shift in politics. Business as usual is no longer a viable option. Politics has to change.

At the root of pervasive corruption is opaque political funding. All politics is funded, almost exclusively, by the proceeds of corruption obtained through loot of the exchequer, sale of patronage and plain extortion. This form of resource mobilisation allows politicians to build private fortunes while collecting party funds. All this must change.

All parties and politicians should be made to disclose political expenditure every month, the figure should be open to challenge by rivals, watchdog bodies and the media, a body like the Election Commission should moderate the contest and finalise the expenditure at each level, from the village and municipal ward to the Centre, and every party should be obligedto disclose the source of these funds. Wishful thinking? Happily not. The pressure is on.